A variety of different types of voting equipment are used in the United States and throughout the world. In many jurisdictions, a voter receives a paper ballot on which various contests, i.e., voting options and corresponding mark spaces, are printed. The voter votes by darkening or otherwise marking the appropriate mark spaces on the paper ballot. The marked paper ballot may then be dropped in a ballot box, which is transferred to a central election office for tabulation by a high speed ballot tabulation device. Alternatively, many jurisdictions provide a smaller precinct-based ballot tabulation device at each polling place that allows a voter to directly insert her ballot into the device for tabulation.
Precinct-based ballot tabulation devices, such as the Model 100® and DS200® devices sold by Election Systems & Software, LLC, are well known to those skilled in the art. Upon scanning a paper ballot, the tabulation device alerts the voter if there are any ballot irregularities associated with the ballot, such as one or more under votes (when the voter has not made a voting selection for a contest) and one or more over votes (when the voter has made too many voting selections for a contest). The tabulation device also determines if the ballot is blank, which may have been caused by a voter using a writing instrument that the device cannot read. While the tabulation device will warn voters of these ballot irregularities, the voter often has the option to override the warning and allow the device to accept the ballot “as is.” In doing so, the tabulation device will process the ballot according to the election rules for the state in which it is being used. For example, an over voted contest will typically not credit any candidate with a vote. At the end of the election day, the vote totals from the tabulation device are transmitted or otherwise provided to the central election office for accumulation with the vote totals of other tabulation devices in the jurisdiction. The central election office is then required to report the election results by voting precinct in accordance with state election laws.
The number of precinct-based ballot tabulation devices will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction depending on the size of the county and the number of voting precincts. Some jurisdictions will have as few as 20 tabulation devices in various locations, while others may have well over 1000 tabulation devices. Many jurisdictions (particularly large jurisdictions) find it very difficult to monitor all of the devices simultaneously. While the tabulation devices themselves are all self-contained computer systems that are designed and tested to withstand the rigors of transport, such devices are still electronic devices and the jurisdictions must be prepared for failure on election day. Many jurisdictions will purchase extra tabulation devices to have on hand for replacement of any failed devices on election day. However, monitoring when and where the extra tabulation devices are needed is currently handled through phone calls to a central election office, which is already over burdened by voter-related phone calls on election day. Information as to whether each and every tabulation device is operating correctly is critical to maintaining a smooth election day process.